Future World  

　　It’s Friday morning in the year 2025, and you’re running late. You got distracted watching the music video that as playing in the corner of your bathroom mirror while you were brushing your teeth. How will you get to your office at Mega Giga Industries on time?

　　A quick check of your Internet-connected refrigerator magnet tells you your train which travels at speeds up to 250 miles an hour as it electromagnetically hovers¹ above its guide track—is a bit behind schedule, too. So you decide to drive your environmentally-friendly hydrogen fuel cell car instead—or rather, let your car drive you. It’s programmed to know the way, and it will get you there without speeding, getting lost, or crashing.

　　Settling into your office chair, which changes color to match what you’re wearing, you pick up yesterday morning’s newspaper. Printed on reusable electronic paper, it instantly rewrites itself with today’s headlines. Now it’s time for your big meeting. Uh-oh! You’ve left your handwritten notes at home. No problem. The digital ink pen you used has stored an electronic copy of what you wrote.

　　Your wristwatch videophone suddenly rings. Your best friend’s face pops up on the organic light-emitting diode screen asking what you’re doing this weekend. Will you slap on your 3-D contact lenses and play virtual soccer with the U.S. Olympic team? No, no. Your friend says, so you have to take the new nanotube elevator (made of microscopic² fibers³ many times stronger than steel) 60,000 miles into space.

　　Could this scene really take place in just a couple of decades? The researchers who are currently developing all this stuff think so. These gadgets⁴ may be as common in 20 years as cell phones and DVD players are today.

　　2025年的一个星期五早上，你眼看就要迟到了。你正在盥洗室里刷牙，却被玻璃镜一角正放着的音乐录像弄得分了心。你怎样才能按时赶到米嘉-技嘉公司上班呢？

　　赶快查一下电冰箱上的磁贴，那是与互联网链接的。磁贴将告诉你，你所要乘坐的时速达250英里(相当于400公里)的磁悬浮火车正好也晚点了。于是，你决定开着环保型的氢动力车去上班，或者更确切地说，让你的车载着你去上班。这种车是经过程序设计的，知道行进方向。它可以载着你安全抵达目的地，不超速，不迷路，也不会出车祸。

　　你把自己舒舒服服地安顿在办公室的椅子上（这种椅子会自动变色，好与你的衣服颜色相配），拿出一份昨天的晨报。报纸是印在可以重复使用的电子纸上的，它立刻自动换上了今天的新闻标题。好啦，你该参加一个重要会议了。哦，你把手写笔记忘在家里了！没问题。你用过的数字水笔已经储存了一份相关内容的电子文本。

　　突然，你手表上的可视电话响了。你最要好的朋友出现在有机激光显示屏上，问你这个周末有何打算。“想戴上三维隐形眼镜，与美国奥林匹克队进行一场虚拟足球比赛吗？”“不，不。”你朋友说。那么，你们打算乘新型的纳米电梯（用微纤维制成，强度比钢高出许多倍）进入60，000英里（相当于96，000公里）高度的太空遨游。

　　再过二三十年，这一切真的会发生吗？那些目前正在开发这些东西的研究人员对此深信不疑。20年后，这些小玩艺儿就会像今天的手机和DVD机一样随处可见。

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